Does Being Religious Make You a Racist? Essay Example

Introduction

According to several scholars, there is something called the “clash of civilizations” (Feldman, 2012)  taking place between the Middle East and the Western world. This clash can be explained by cultural, ethical reasons, however, not many authors covered the role of religion in racism and prejudice. The below paper is aiming to address this relationship and investigate whether or not there is a pattern in Islam towards Christianity that is similar to the relationship between Christian heritage and prejudice against Islam, often called as “Islamophobia”.

Thesis question: Is Islam correlated to racist and excluding views about Christianity and other out-groups?

Literature Review

One of the first studies regarding the role of religious orientation in the process of forming prejudice was created by Herek (1987). One of the main findings of the study was that the influence of religion on one’s prejudice was dependent on the “out-group”. This indicates that the more fundamentalist the religion in question is the more it would affect one’s prejudice. Conservative religions are more prone to predict prejudice, and the level of influence would be determined by the difference in ethical views between one’s religion and the “out-group”’s behavior, beliefs and moral norms.

According to Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan (2010), human condition is determined by religion, sacred values and ethical considerations. This also indicates that it would have an impact on religious groups’ prejudice against other groups, if their customs, ethics and beliefs are fundamentally different.

Sharriff and Norenzayan (2007) completed a study to reveal the role of religion in prosocial behavior. The results indicated that the higher the group’s engagement in religion was the greater the level of prejudice and prosocial behavior was. While the two studies were based on economic decision-making exercises, they clearly showed a positive correlation between religion and prejudice.

Ginges, Atran, Medin and Shikaki. (2007) examined the influence of taboos and sacred religious values on Israeli and Palestinian people’s decision-making. The authors revealed that these religious values are indeed in the way of creating political, social and religious compromise, therefore, they trigger ethnic and faith-based conflicts.

Hall, Matz and Wood (2010) used a sample from the United States to examine the link between racism and religion.  The authors found that group identity is often strengthened by racial out-groups’ exclusion. They examined the role of of extrinsic religiosity and fundamentalist beliefs in relation with the level of “out-group” exclusion. The findings suggest that both measures had a positive impact on the growth of exclusion, racism and prejudice.

Research Objectives and Study Design

In the light of the above literature review, the authors would like to conclude a quantitative correlative survey that would address the initially stated thesis question. The design of the study would be abased on administered questionnaires distributed across a range of participants selected based on religion. All participants would be Christian, however, their involvement in religious activities would be of a different level. For the aim of the correlative design, the participants will be selected from fundamental Islam, and fundamental Roman Catholic groups. The research will be aiming to find correlation between the two measures identified by the thesis question: the level of involvement in religion and the level of prejudice

a, against Islam and Muslim people in case of Christians

b, against Christians in case of fundamental Islamic groups. This way the authors will be able to compare the impact of fundamental Christianity and Islam on religion-based prejudice.

Further, the authors would like to compare the level of prejudice against religious and other type of minority groups, for example homosexuals or Blacks in order to determine to what extent “out-group” is a determinant of forming prejudice.

References

Feldman, M. (2012) From radical-right islamophobia to ‘cumulative extremism’. Faith Matters.

Ginges, J.,  Atran, S., Medin, D., Shikaki, K. (2007) Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(18), 7357-7360

Hall, D., Matz, D., Wood, W. (2010)  Why don’t we practice what we preach? A meta-analytic review of religious racism. Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(1) 126–139

Henrich, J., Heine, S., Norenzayan, A. (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral And Brain Sciences 33, 61–135

Herek, G. (1987) Religious orientation and prejudice: a comparison of racial and sexual attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13(1), 34-44

Shariff, A., Norenzayan, A. (2007) God is watching you – priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychological Science. 18(9). 803-809